Spokane Soccer Center to expand

A Spokane Valley business got permission Friday to expand an indoor soccer center for people who can’t get enough of the sport.

Spokane Soccer Center, 7320 E. Nora Ave., plans a second building that will more than double the company’s capacity.

That may not keep some teams from having to start their games at 6 a.m. or 11:30 p.m., but fewer may be turned away.

“In winter session, we turned away about 50 teams,” regional manager Brian Dreves said. “There are only so many hours in the day. We are trying to take in as many teams as we can and not go too crazy.”

Dreves, who also manages indoor soccer centers in Boise and Portland, said the for-profit business hasn’t designed its new Spokane building or set a construction schedule. But the pressure is on, he said: “Our numbers are building every single year, every single (seasonal) session.”

The center caters to youth and adult recreational teams that want to keep playing when their regular seasons end. Every winter, the center draws more than 200 teams from all around Spokane County as well as Coeur d’Alene and Sandpoint.

“We try to keep it as fun as possible,” Dreves said, noting that league standings are not kept for the off-season games.

In a decision filed Friday, Spokane Valley Hearing Examiner Michael Dempsey agreed to modify a 2003 conditional-use permit that soccer center attorney John Montgomery said was so restrictive that the proposed expansion wasn’t feasible.

The primary problem was a requirement that allowed only practice sessions, no games.

“We’re very happy to get the permit,” Montgomery said, calling the project “long overdue.”

“It’s hard to believe that people would play soccer at all times of day and night, but they do,” he said.

Spokane Soccer Center opened its current 22,000-square-foot building in 1998. Plans call for a second building of 26,343 square feet.

Dempsey said the proposed use is appropriate for the site’s light industrial zoning. Also, he noted that neither the Spokane Valley planning department nor neighbors objected to the expansion.

Sewer service arrived at the 2.21-acre site after the project was proposed, eliminating the need for a planned septic system. As a result, Dempsey said, the center will have 79 parking spaces instead of the 58 originally planned.